Sandbowl Snail
Quickella arenaria
About
A small snail whose fragile shell is 5-8mm wide, turreted and conical, with a large body whorl. Its shell is red-brown in colour, moderately shiny with relatively coarse growth lines. Its dark digestive gland shows through the spire making it seem very dark compared to the body whorl. The animal is dark grey to black.
It lives in wet hollows among sand dunes, or on grazed, sparsely vegetated flood plains of larger lakes. All of its sites are on calcareous coastal sands or on Carboniferous limestone.
It used to be widespread at the end of the glacial period, but decreased after forest growth. It is now scattered and rare.
Conservation status
‘Near Threatened’ on the IUCN red list. Endangered in Great Britain. This species is protected in the United Kingdom under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
The Sandbowl Snail - Quickella Arenaria
Some quirk of taxonomy named me Quickella, a zoological joke,
after some malacologist fella, an ironically monikered bloke.
I’m mostly in sand dunes, in so-called ‘wet hollows’, dragging my soft parts through grit,
when I make a move then some discomfort follows - it’s challenging, I will admit -
and our special places are currently shrinking, as the planet warms up all around,
so what we need now is some planning and thinking, to moisturise this hot, dry ground,
and we’re only little, and not very charming, and maybe a tiny bit odd,
and nobody cares much if world heating’s harming this rather obscure gastropod.
So life is not easy for we fleshy creatures, and to add to the troubles we’ve got -
one of our stranger distinguishing features, is a short penis with a dark spot!
So, spare us a thought as you park for your picnic, we’re under your feet, in the sand,
and if you could help cool the climate down quickly, we molluscs say, that would be grand!
Length: 98 seconds
Poem: Rowena Sommerville
Read by: Rowena Sommerville
Sculpture
For most of the pieces in this project I have deliberately avoided being too literal and representative. For this piece, I've done the exact opposite! What could be more literal in this case than a model of the snail, sitting on sand, in a bowl!
The bowl was created by moulding a circular light fitting in silicone rubber, as well as moulding laser-cut wooden text. Wax was painted into the moulds and the text pieces 'glued' with wax onto the bowl.
A separate mould was created of some sand covered plaster and wax versions of these produced. A snail was modelled by hand in wax and added to this piece.
These two pieces were cast separately and then welded together after they were cleaned up. A steel base was made and rusted to sit under the bowl.
Sandbowl Snail
20x20x15cm
Bronze and steel
Work in progress
Images of various stages of the sculpture's production (I forgot to photograph most of this sculpture's journey):
